


Past, Present, and Promises

by Aiepathy



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst, Bickering, Conflict Resolution, F/M, Grounder Culture, Headcanon, Love, Minor Original Character(s), One Shot, Peacekeepers, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-13 00:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4501563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aiepathy/pseuds/Aiepathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lincoln and Octavia have become the link between Camp Jaha, the people who are commonly called the Skaikru, and the many Grounder clans who may or may not see eye to eye with Lexa. After months of adjusting and fulfilling their roles however they travel to a different type of clan; one that holds insight into Lincoln's past, one that opens up a new future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Past, Present, and Promises

**Author's Note:**

> Literally all of the pre-canon info about Lincoln is made up unless you explicitly remember it from the series.

“He’s a quiet one. Has been since his father died,” Ayleigh said, rubbing a soft, wet cloth across Octavia’s face, cleaning it of the dirt and blood and smudged kohl.

“I can do this myself.” Octavia attempted to change the subject. She hoped that Ayleigh would leave, give her a moment with her thoughts.

Octavia hated to talk to these people about her Lincoln. She hated how they knew his family’s history and about him as a child, as a teenager, as a young adult. She hated that she only knew the small snippets of Lincoln’s history she has seen in his journals when she got too nosy or what little knowledge she could force out of him when he was tired or hurt. She hated alot of things, but if she was honest, most of it just made her sad. And some of it made her scared. Some of it made her scared that someone could take her Lincoln away from her, take him away just as quickly as everything was taken from her on the ark.

“Akira gave me this job. I will do it.” Ayleigh stopped her soft washing of Octavia’s face, laying the cloth to the side and picking up a pot of newly mixed black kohl. Octavia understands that while she could do it herself, Akira had given her second a job and her second had to insure that job was completed. Ayleigh wouldn’t be leaving her alone.

“How did you know Lincoln? You aren’t a part of the same clan.” Octavia hated herself for asking, but she had to know. She hated that she knew so little not only about Lincoln, but also about the clans and their history.

She was a representative of the Skaikru, a delegate of peace appealing to those afraid that Lexa might turn on them as well. The trust Lexa had held was broken when she turned on the thirteenth clan and left them to die. If they could so easily be left to die who else was disposable? 

That fear was planted and Octavia knew she needed to understand more about the clans and their histories and their individual ways if she was truly going to impress and capitalize on that fear. She hated that she didn’t know enough. It left her feeling just as helpless as she had felt as a little girl, hiding in her cubbyhole while the guards checked their unit. It left her feeling just as helpless as when she first encountered Lincoln, when she was in the jaws of that radioactive serpent, when she lost Atom. There were so many moments she had felt helpless, but she had grown to feel empowered as well during their time trying to confront the mountain. Now, she was back to that helpless feeling, a feeling that couldn’t be overcome by any amount of fighting prowess. 

“Trigedakru and our people were close. Before the alliance of the 12 clans we had our own. I saw Lincoln about, we were friends, and then close friends, at one point. With the growing power of the Ice Nation and their attacks against Trigedakru, however, we pulled away. I haven’t seen Lincoln since.” Ayleigh placed the pot of kohl to the side, a little harder than was necessary. She looked down for a moment at the kohl pot, inspecting it for damage before carefully lifting a small jar of red paint.

The blanket of silence that fell over them was broken only by Ayleigh’s humming in time to her movements, slow and meticulous, painting red swirls along Octavia’s jaw. Painting the last flourish down Octavia’s neck, she cleaned her hands and placed the paint and kohl into the box they came from, once again inspecting the kohl pot for damage she might have missed. Satisfied, she moved behind Octavia, fingers pulling at the knotted braids she had been wearing for weeks. Octavia could feel the familiar drying sensation along her forehead and jaw and down her neck where the red paint was applied. It was almost calming. If not calming, at least it was familiar.

“Why is all of this so important?” Octavia asked motioning to the older girl behind her fixing her hair. She understood the kohl, the power behind it, and the clothes, the protection and use they held, but the care with which Ayleigh undid and smoothed Octavia’s braids only to rejoin them with new beads was perplexing. It was a soft action, a caring one that Octavia couldn’t imagine held ritual significance.

“It’s our offering to you. A hospitality if you will.” Octavia nodded. Just another part of the show. Every clan had theirs. This clan was just focused on getting the upperhand through debts of kindness. “I remember you Octavia of the Sky People.” Octavia stiffened, unsure what was coming. She had been recognized as Indra’s short-lived second before and luckily due to the general unhappiness with the tree clan it hadn’t ruined any possible alliances. This, however, was different. The Reinkru had a history with the tree clan whether they still felt loyal to it or not. “I am happy to see that you have found your place, your people. Know that Reinkru will not hold your past or Lincoln’s over you as we weigh an alliance with the Skaikru.”

Octavia physically relaxed though she maintained a blank face. “Osir mochof.” We thank you.

“Pro.” You’re welcome.

Ayleigh finished braiding Octavia’s hair, new beads in place and finally allowed Octavia to stand for the first time in more than an hour. The meticulous way Ayleigh had moved had no doubt slowed them. Octavia stretched her arms and back, pushed her body onto her toes and then followed Ayleigh from the tent hoping that she wouldn’t be walking into a meeting that had already begun.

A crowd of small children had emerged. Octavia knew that despite her initial impressions of grounder life based on the Trigedakru it was actually something much more complex. She had found that each clan had their own traditions, angles, cultures even, held only together by the knowledge that they as an entity, as grounders, had survived something so many others hadn’t.

The presence of these small, nervous, but smiling children proved that to her once again. Children with long braids, and bald heads, and loose, unwound hair look up at her with wide eyes and watched as Ayleigh led her past. An adolescent girl older than the rest, but Octavia knew several years younger than herself stood separate from the group watching with a mix of awe and suspicion as Octavia passes. She wanted to smile at the girl, offer some reassurance that she was well-intentioned, but she couldn’t. She was a warrior, so she kept her face neutral. If her time with Indra had taught her anything it was that showing emotion was weakness.

Octavia was led into a large wooden dome. Inside the walls were covered in intricately beaded animal skins with a large round table in the center. Standing behind it was a tall, heavy-set woman whose face was worn deep with laugh lines and wrinkles. She was older than most of the leaders Octavia had met with, but her eyes were so alive. Braids fell around her shoulders, each a different size, each carefully beaded just Octavia’s were. Her broad face bore red tattoos along the jaw and forehead similar to those Ayleigh had painted onto Octavia. Her arms were scored with raised scars, indicative of a fierce career as a warrior. Most received the badges on their chest first, then shoulders moving down the arms if the first two regions were filled. A cut, a burn, a brand that became the welt-like scar received for every milestone, every victory, and in some cases, every kill. A sense of that childish fear she had the first time she met Lincoln coursed through her veins. Pushing that fear back she stood taller, allowing a hand to fall reassuringly to the sword at her hips.

This woman may be an experienced warrior and leader, Octavia reminded herself, but I am also a warrior, a leader, and a woman seeking peace for her people.

“Okteivia kom Skaikru. Mounin.” Octavia of the Sky People. Welcome.

“Hei Akira kom Reinkru.” Hello Akira of the Rain People.

Octavia looked around, scanning the room for threats. They landed on a large man standing behind Akira, his back close to the wall, body mostly in the shadows. “Leave us Odom,” Akira commanded when she saw where Octavia’s eyes were trained. He bowed his head and exited without looking up. “This meeting will be as safe and intimate as you allow it to be. Yourself and Lincoln, myself and Ayleigh. Sit Octavia. Speak with me for a moment.”

Octavia followed the request taking a seat opposite where Akira had just sat. She lowered herself into the high backed wooden chair, posture remaining straight, eyes never leaving Akira’s but body tuned into every movement inside and outside the tent. “You’re an observant one Octavia. I can feel it.” Octavia remained silent. “I promise no harm will come to you while you are with us. We have found that our way has kept us out of many of the conflicts our people have fought. We fight when we have to, but we do not seek war.”

Octavia nodded. Lincoln had been quiet on the journey from Camp Jaha to the Reinkru territory. He had told her almost nothing about the people she was now sitting across from, saying only they were a more peaceful, different from the other grounders she had met. Now her silence had a purpose.

Thinking of the three day trek from Camp Jaha to their territory and Lincoln’s silence she began to wonder where exactly her companion was. She didn’t like the fact that he was missing from the meeting. Octavia knew she was strong, but strength was also found in numbers, something she didn’t currently have on her side.

“Lincoln will be here soon. I’ve held him back as I want to speak with you for a bit.” Octavia was confused by that. Most of the leaders had been eager to speak with Lincoln, but wary of Octavia as though she was the outsider not the direct representative of the Sky People. “We’ve heard much about you Octavia. But we know little.”

Ayleigh stood and disappeared out of the hut, leaving Akira and Octavia alone, opposite each other, numbers evened out. Octavia appreciated the rarity of the situation, the trust it placed between the two leaders.

“My people come from the sky. We-”

“No. I do not care for talk of your people right now. I want to know about you. Tell me about the person Octavia is. What brought you here? What shaped you?”

Octavia hadn’t spoken of her past in months. Lincoln was the only person she had told the entirety of the story to. With the delinquents everyone just knew. She was the girl found in the floor. The arkers knew. She was the girl whose family gave up everything for her to live. She was the first Sky Person to step foot on the ground. The other grounders simply saw her as a delegate, an extension of her people who had a name but didn’t need a history. Akira was asking something only Lincoln had.

“I was born in the sky,” Octavia began. She recounted in minimal detail her time on the ark, hiding herself away in the floor. She recounted that night she left, the first time she stepped away from her unit. She recounted the confusion, how she couldn’t find her home. She told Akira about watching her mother being sucked into the void of space and about being locked up in solitary confinement until she was finally sent to the ground. She talked of being the first Sky Person on the ground and how Lincoln had saved her and how she had saved him. She told of her short time with Indra and finally about the traveling they had been doing for her people. She told Akira everything, weighing the words in her mouth before sharing them, afraid to share too much, but not capable of sharing any less.

“A prisoner who shouldn’t have been born and the first of your people back on the ground,” Akira said reverently. “You have my respect Octavia. Your struggle is the struggle of few but in the vein of many.”

“Thank you,” Octavia said softly, now uncertain if she had overshared, uncertain as to whether this would come back to bite her in the future. “I know little about your people,” Octavia began but stopped when a warm and knowing smile spread across Akira’s face.

“We’re different. We know that. But I don’t think you’re actually interested in our customs so much as how Lincoln once fit into them.” Octavia remained silent, embarrassed that Akira was right. She wanted to know more about their customs, the things that made them so different, but she knew that the time she would spend among the Reinkru would make that clear. Customs were always clearer when you watched them than when you were told about them.

The one thing she knew no amount of time among the people could clarify was Lincoln’s past. The past he seldom talked about which apparently found itself overlapping with this clan. “I told you that this would be an intimate meeting and I told you I wanted to speak to you. I believe honesty is key to that. I will not tell anything too personal to Lincoln as that is his to share or not, but I will tell you a bit of our history.”

Octavia waited as Akira gathered her thoughts and leaned back in her chair, preparing to tell a short history of her people. “Trigedakru and Reinkru have long had an alliance. Since the clans formed we’ve held an alliance. When the Ice Queen came to power it was clear that she wanted blood. And that blood was not our blood. She didn’t care for a war with us. We don’t seek war. Our territory is much farther south of hers than the Trigedakru’s. We knew if we stood alongside them in a war against the Azgeda we would be giving up our ways. We would be fighting simply to fight, not to survive.” Akira paused. “But that doesn’t answer any of your questions. Does it?”

“No,” Octavia finally said after a silence. She had weighed her options. Being honest and upfront with Akira seemed like the best course of action.

“Part of our alliance was sharing our children. They traveled between the two clans. We would send a promising youth to be trained in the ways of war and they would send a different one back, one of theirs to be trained in the arts of life.”

“Arts of life?” Octavia asked, genuinely curious. All the ground had been was war since she had been there. She had to question whether there was any other way. Even the ark had been one type of war or another, a stealthy war where women sold their bodies, hid their children in the floor, and were sent into the void of space for daring to survive with their families in any way possible.

“Art. Farming. Invention. We take part in war when we have to, but we wish to rebuild a society that is more than war, like that before the bombs.” Octavia was fascinated. Why had Lincoln not told her any of this? Why hadn’t he told her there were people who were different from his? Not just different from his, different from every other group she had encountered on the ground.

Akira stood slowly and Octavia knew the chance to talk one-on-one was gone, Gone for at least the time being as she crossed to the door, opening it and calling an order out in Trigedasleng before returning to her seat across from Octavia. As she sat Ayleigh and Lincoln walked in. Ayleigh moved around the table to sit beside her leader while Lincoln waited for Akira’s invitation to take a seat next to Octavia. Normally his presence might calm her, but instead it was leaving her feeling something else. She felt uncertain and a little hurt that Lincoln wouldn’t speak with her and explain what they were walking into when he so obviously knew. There was an element of surprise Akira was now capable of holding over her if she so chose to.

Octavia glanced at Lincoln, clad in new clothing made of a mix of leather and fur, his face not only clean of dirt but also clean shaven as he prefered to keep it. She almost smiled at the more recognizable Lincoln beside her but remembered that despite her raw conversation with Akira they were still in a technically dangerous situation, proposing peace to a new clan in a hut far from home. Looking away, training her eyes back on the two leaders across from her, she felt his hand brush her thigh, squeeze, then withdraw to rest clasped with the other on the table in front of them. It was an action which, though she appreciated, didn’t help to ease her feelings of uncertainty.

“We have received you as friends,” Akira said after a lengthy silence the two representatives of the Skaikru had been unwilling to break. “I have found a respect for Octavia that I haven’t found for many outsiders. So very like Pilar.”

Octavia could sense a tension fall over the room at the utterance of that name. Pilar. Octavia felt once again that she was at a disadvantage and she hated it, but she knew that it was entirely due to Lincoln’s refusal to adequately fill her in on the ways of these people and their culture and history, his obviously entangled history.  
“Octavia and Pilar are nothing alike Akira,” Lincoln said quietly, but with a force behind his voice, a dangerous and cutting edge that Octavia had seldom heard in it. Physically imposing Lincoln was, but his silence was normally his strongest asset. “We come asking for an alliance and nothing more, nothing less. We do not want your friendship, only loyalty.”

“No,” Octavia interjected, drawing three pairs of eyes to her. “Lincoln’s wrong. We don’t just want loyalty from you because loyalty is too easily broken and swayed by circumstance. You’ve seen where loyalty has left my people, Lincoln’s people, your people, in the past. I ask that we form a different alliance. One that relies on a common goal, a common goal that isn’t just protection from war and partnership during it.”

“So much like Pilar,” Akira murmured with a smile. “We would love to have a mutual alliance with your people, Octavia. For protection and war, and invention and art. I will ask that you two stay with us for a bit, a few days. Use the time to recover from your travels and become accustomed with our ways. Use this time to learn about us, Octavia. Use the time to remember a different life, Lincoln. At the end of it we will speak again and work out details of this alliance that you may carry back to your people.”

“I don’t think we have the time,” Lincoln began but once again Octavia cut him off, tired of Lincoln attempting to call shots he had no right calling. If he didn’t want to tell her about this clan and its people and his past she would learn it herself.

“If it won’t put you out we have three days to lay over.”

“As friends I ask that you think of nothing as putting us out,” Akira said, a sincerity in her voice that made Octavia feel it wasn’t all just a game of debts. “I just hope that both our peoples will understand this alliance in the way you and I do Octavia. I hope that you Lincoln, and you Ayleigh, both understand this alliance in the way we do.”

“If any doubt remains, we’ll just have to prove it wrong.”

Octavia risked glancing at Ayleigh who hadn’t spoken a word. Her eyes were trained on the wall above Lincoln’s head, hardened from what they had initially been. Ayleigh’s mouth was pursed and her jaw was set. Octavia could swear she could hear her teeth grinding. Her forehead was bunched as well. Octavia found herself hoping that Akira’s second wouldn’t prove a barrier to the alliance.

After several more minutes of discussion, Akira said, “Odom will be waiting outside. He will lead you to your room.”

Octavia thanked Akira, Lincoln remaining silent, following her from the dome with a more closed off expression than Octavia was accustomed. Odom was, as predicted, waiting outside. He led them to a small hut at the end of a long row of various sized homes, built sturdy for what was obviously very permanent usage. They had already intended to stay the night so the few necessities they had brought with them had already been settled inside.

Octavia took her sword from her belt, lying it down on a low table before turning to Lincoln who was standing motionless and silent just inside the doorway. “Why won’t you speak to me?” Octavia asked the moment Lincoln pulled the door shut behind him.

Lincoln’s hardened, training somewhere above Octavia’s head, refusing to look at her. It reminded her of the early days on the ground, reminded her of his refusal to make eye contact with her so often in the beginning when she didn’t even know if he could understand him. He had quickly went to the opposite end of the spectrum, making copious amounts of eye contact as opposed to speaking, but now Octavia felt like they were back at square one and despite the bigger issues, she really just wanted to know what he was hiding this time. He continued to stand motionless in the same place. “Why do the Reinkru scare you so much?”

“I am not afraid of them,” Lincoln said, eyes remaining trained above her head, but an insistence had entered his voice.

“Then why won’t you talk about them? I got here knowing nothing because you wouldn’t talk to me. And don’t tell me it was for a lack of trying Lincoln. I have been trying to learn about them for more than a week and you’ve maybe told me all of a hundred words worth of information. I don’t know this place like you obviously do.”  
Without so much as shifting his eyes or making a sound, he crossed the room and sat down on the bed, silently beginning to pull his boots off. Nightfall had come during their meeting and most of the village had already retired.

“Joka,” Octavia muttered the curse, angry that Lincoln was still refusing to speak to her.

“Octavia,” Lincoln said, his boots laying beside him, voice calm but clearly straining to remain that way. “I have a history here that I don’t wish to relive.”

“You don’t get to do that,” Octavia said glaring at the man who refused to so much as glance at her, glaring at the man whose eyes were harder than she had often seen them obviously making a concerted effort to detach himself from the telling orbs. “You know everything about me. I know almost nothing about you Lincoln. So you don’t get to say you don’t want to relive your past as an excuse not to speak to me.” Lincoln remained silent, undressing his upper body slowly, not meeting Octavia’s eyes. “You’re weak Lincoln,” Octavia spat out, trying to put as much anger as she possibly could behind every syllable, attempting to use her voice to hurt him. “You won’t even look at me because you know you’re wrong. I can’t believe I fell in love with someone who is so weak.”

“Stop it, Octavia.” Lincoln finally brought his eyes to meet her unwavering gaze, his hands stilling, voice giving way to more emotion than it previously had.

“Why? Why should I stop it? So I don’t hurt poor little Lincoln’s feelings? Well guess what? You don’t give a shit about mine, so why should I care about yours?” Octavia could feel herself seething, putting every ounce of the confusion and pain she had been feeling from being shut out by Lincoln into the words.

Lincoln quickly rose to his feet, approaching Octavia. Octavia planted her feet shoulder width as he crowded her space and lashed out with two quick jabs, one of which caught his stomach and the other his forearm, as he picked her up. He trapped her arms against her sides and pulled her to him. She stopped fighting but also relaxed her body so that he would have to haul her deadweight across the room. It wasn’t difficult for him. He had done it so many times in the early days, but it made her feel a little better, made her feel better that he was struggling at least a little. He deposited her on the bed opposite the door which he quickly blocked with his body seeming to expect Octavia to try to leave. “I’m not the conflict avoider here.” Octavia felt the need to get a verbal jab or two in before Lincoln tried to deescalate the situation.

“I care about you and you know that. You want to know about my past? Fine. Sit down and shut up, and I’ll tell you.”

Octavia was pleased in a way, but she kept her face blank. She had made him feel something, made him prove to her that he was feeling something even if it did look a lot like animosity and tarnished pride. His eyes were dark, annnoyance and anger and a little pain clear in his body language. Octavia wasn’t sure if she hoped the pain was from the punch she had landed in his stomach or if she would rather it be because he realized how shitty he was acting.

Continuing to watch him, she analysed his demeanor. Something about it told her that whatever he was about to tell her was something she probably didn’t want to hear.

“I didn’t want to come here with you okay? I have a past here that I don’t want to relive. These people betrayed me and my people, Octavia. I didn’t want to talk about them because everything I could say would be negative and I didn’t want to ruin your chances of an alliance, but I don’t want you thinking that a friendship with them is a good idea. If we get into a tight place they will give up that friendship just like they did with my people.”

“My people are different than yours were Lincoln. We have more in common with the Reinkru than yours did.” Octavia needed him to understand what she felt was so instinctive. The Reinkru reminded her so much of the arkers. So much of what the arkers had dreamed of was present in the things Akira had said she hoped to find for her people.

“Maybe,” Lincoln conceded. “I have other, more personal reasons, that I want to be out of here as fast as possible. And you wanted to know them, so I’m going to tell you. You want to know my past, you’ll know after this.” Octavia silently watched as Lincoln’s body lost the angry presence she watched as he did the one thing he was really impeccable at, detaching himself from his feelings and sense of self. He would be telling this story as though it wasn’t his reality. “Akira told you about the way the alliance used to work?”

“She told me that kids traveled between the two clans based on skills. She said that she wished to teach the arts of life, not just war.”

“Correct. The alliance was most powerful when I was younger. I was born Trikru and I was raised a warrior. After my father’s death I couldn’t be with my people anymore.” Lincoln’s voice was soft and Octavia began to fear where the story was heading. She didn’t speak, however, fearful he wouldn’t continue if she interrupted, if she broke his dissociative state and forced him to acknowledge his actual role in the story he was telling.

“I received permission from our leader at the time, before Anya, to spend a couple months with the Reinkru. I lived with Akira during that time and she taught me how to draw, how to record the things I saw, and how to be something other than a warrior. It was the most peaceful time I’ve ever experienced. I won’t bore you with the details of my training just yet. You just want to know why I was avoiding this very situation.”

Lincoln paused.

“Ayleigh and I had known each other when we were younger, but we had only ever competed to see who could climb the tallest tree or throw the straightest spear. Those months were different,” Lincoln said slowly. Octavia bit her lip, sensing where the story was going but forcing herself to nod in reassurance for Lincoln to continue. She needed to know the details. She needed to know what led Lincoln away from this place that he so obviously once loved and pushed him to her. “Ayleigh was already Akira’s second, had been for several months at the time. We began to get close first as friends then as companions, lovers, something more, and I asked her to commit to me.”

Octavia could feel tears building behind her eyes. She reminded herself that she was a warrior and that the ground was a different place. It still stung, but she had prepared herself for this when they had first become involved. She knew he had to have a past, a history, but she had always assumed that past would remain faceless and nameless.  
Octavia could feel Lincoln’s eyes scan her face, but she had decided that adopting his untelling expression was the thing she needed. Finding nothing, he continued slowly, “We were set to marry with Akira’s blessing and my leader’s, the only family either of us possessed. My people don’t have real weddings like yours, ceremonies and flowers and festivities, but the Reinkru do. And Ayleigh and myself planned a spring ceremony.”

Lincoln paused so that Octavia could digest the information. She was pleased with only one thing. She was pleased that as she thought about it, she didn’t want a spring wedding. Everything else just kinda hurt and made her feel bitter in ways she knew she wasn’t entitled to.

“The Azgeda began attacking my people the fall before we were to marry and I realized that I couldn’t stay with the Reinkru when they had no intention of aiding my people in their fight. I couldn’t stay and draw and get married while my people were slaughtered. I couldn’t know that my wife was helping make those decisions. So I left. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I left. I told Akira I was sorry and she wished me well. She told me that she hoped to meet me again and she gave me a bag full of journals and pencils, told me to draw what I saw and what I experienced. I didn’t tell Ayleigh I was leaving. I told Akira to tell her and I left during the night. I hadn’t seen either of them until today.”

A watery quality had found Lincoln’s voice, one Octavia has only heard a handful of times, one she only ever heard in the dark. He looked guilty and sad and hopeful all wrapped up in one.

Following a short silence Octavia asked, “Is that why you would disappear during the meetings with Lexa? Afraid to run into one of the Reinkru who knew you?” She knew that same watery quality in Lincoln’s voice had taken refuge in hers. Lincoln nodded silently, allowing pieces of a puzzle Octavia didn’t know she was solving to fall into place.  
“So you were engaged?” Once again Lincoln nodded. “Come here,” Octavia said. Lincoln slowly made his way across the room, all anger gone from both of them, fear and a myriad of other emotions having taken it’s place. He stood in front of her, allowing her the option of rejection that he always left open to her. She took his hand, pulling him down to sit beside her. Nothing but their hands touch and their eyes didn’t meet. They couldn’t meet. If they meet, if anything but their hands had touched, both might have fallen apart. “Did you love her?”

“I felt the closest thing to love I knew at the time. I felt safe here and I told myself she was a friend, a safe friend, so I loved her in the way I knew at the time.”

“Do you still have feelings when you see her?”

“Guilt above all,” Lincoln admitted. “I don’t love her. And I never loved her the way I love you. I didn’t know what real love was until I met you because I had never been allowed to feel that way. I was a warrior and I could feel love, but only if that love came out of something more primal.” Lincoln slowly chose those last words and Octavia felt something inside her ache. She was glad that his heart hadn’t loved Ayleigh fully, but his head had, and more importantly his body had.  
“Are you afraid that those feelings will come back? Is that why you want to leave?” Octavia spoke her deepest fear, the one that had plagued her long before she knew Lincoln had almost been married. Her biggest fear was that he would miss his past.

“No,” Lincoln said, his hand tightening around hers. “I want to leave because I realize now that I betrayed the wrong people and I feel guilty. But I also feel guilty because if I hadn’t betrayed them I wouldn’t have met you. Akira was like a mother to me and Ayleigh was the only friend I had for a long time. I feel bad, Octavia, and I feel conflicted. But I am not conflicted over you. You are the one thing I am certain about.”

“Why couldn’t have you told me this before?”

“I didn’t know what we were walking into. I know you think that I was choosing not to tell you, but I didn’t know what they would be like.”

“Not today, but in the future, I need you talk to me. I need you to tell me about your past. There’s too much I don’t know.”

“I’ll tell you anything,” Lincoln whispered, finally turning to look at Octavia. The eye contact they held also held a promise, a promise that they would do better. Not perfect, but better.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Seeing as Linctavia is a somewhat small fandom, you can leave any Linctavia requests in the comments below!


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